Tyler Commercial College

A 1914 postcard credited Tyler Commercial College with about 2,000 students, twenty teachers and more than 10,000 alumni, writer Mike Cox reports. Courses ran from bookkeeping and shorthand to cotton classing and telegraphy, and later a petroleum geology department and a radio station for broadcasting instruction. Every October seven traincars of students rode to Dallas for TCC Day at the State Fair. After the 1903 fire, classes resumed at the Armory the next Monday, an hour late. In the Depression the college phased out shorthand, typing and accounting as public schools took them up.

What the plaque says

Tyler Commercial College In 1894, C.L. and Noah Adair opened the Adair Normal School to provide a university-level education, but the school closed in 1896. In 1899, a charter was filed with the secretary of state's office for Tyler Commercial College. The college used a vacant building, known as the Texas Fruit Palace, for classrooms. On April 1, 1904, Tyler Commercial College was incorporated with C.L. and Noah Adair, H.E. Byrne, and F.A. Glenn as directors of the college. Henry Byrne came to Tyler as the creator of a form of shorthand known as Byrne shorthand and taught courses in transcribing, but also provided the majority of textbooks from his publishing facilities. In 1924, Byrne sold his shares of Tyler commercial college and moved to Dallas where he continued his publishing company. In March 1901, a diploma from Tyler Commercial College entitled holders to a teachers certificate. A fire destroyed the building in 1903 and the college moved to the west side of South College Street. The curriculum was expanded to include courses in the secretarial field, railroad courses, and, by 1931, Tyler Commercial College boasted a radio studio. Tyler Commercial College grew to be the largest commercial college in the nation. In April 1942, the first class of the army signal corps school detachment began with Major Virgil Caldwell commanding officer and John Sheppard instructor and the first group of men began training in radio communications which was in great demand during World War II. In April 1957, the Rutherford Metropolitan School of Business in Dallas purchased Tyler Commercial College and the college moved to South Broadway, remaining in operation until 1980. Tyler Commercial College represented a shift from agricultural education to business education. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 0.4 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 1.3 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 3.7 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Tyler State Park — 9.2 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• First County Agricultural Extension Agent — steps away
• City of Tyler — steps away
• Smith County, C. S. A. — steps away
• Henry Miller Morgan — steps away